playoff series against the Boston Bruins. With a playoff series’ record of 23 wins against 7 losses, it

seems that the hockey gods have smiled upon Montreal in the past. Both sides have significant

players injured [Saku Koivu, Marc Savard] or nearly back from injuries [Mike Komisarek, Patrice

Bergeron]. However, Boston is not a team to be taken lightly. Despite losing their top forward

[Bergeon] & top goalie [Manny Fernandez] for most of the season, and their top forward [Savard] for

the last 7 games of the season, the Bruins have been underdogs this season. Most hockey pundits

dismissed both team’s chances of making it to the postseason. Head coach Claude Julien has truly

gotten the most out of his players. The same could be said for head coach Guy Carbonneau, who has

also taken a team that missed last season’s playoffs, and solidified them into the league’s highest

scoring offence, with solid contributions on both defence and in goal. The youth of this team has

certainly helped redirect the present and future of this club, along with key veterans such as Alexei

Kovalev, Saku Koivu, and Roman Hamrlik. Montreal had a 8-0 dominance over Boston in the regular

season. Many say the post-season is a 2nd season, but not everything from the regular season can

be thrown away. The Bruins have a mental block they’ll need to overcome, in order to compete with

the Habs. Boston will prove to be a tough opponent, but in the end Montreal’s special teams and

have dominated the Bruins for a year and a half. The Canadiens forwards are just too fast for the

Bruins to handle, if Montreal continues with what they have done almost all season the Bruins will be

forced to either sit back and watch the Habs buzz around them or take non stop penalty’s. The

goaltending battle will be interesting as neither Thomas or Price have played an NHL playoff game.

PP unit, Boston is 28th on PK. Montreal is the highest scoring team in the league, Boston’s best

scorers are injured or just coming back and aren’t in game shape. Montreal has impressive team

speed, The Bruins have……Chara?… I don’t know, I ran out of things to say about them. The only

question mark about the Habs is in goal and having a rookie # 1 without playoff experience. Then

again Tim Thomas has been around for quite a while and he doesn’t have any experience either. The

bottom line is that this will be a hard fought series, but it will be like pulling off a band-aid for the

seek some revenge on Ottawa, for being bounced from last season’s playoffs. The series should end

up that way, especially with key Senators such as forwards Mike Fisher & captain Daniel Alfredsson

injured with an unknown timetable for their returns. Goaltending has been inconsistent for Ottawa,

who have had some serious controversy from Ray Emery, to cause the #1 role fall to Martin Gerber .

Pittsburgh has also been stroked with the same inconsistency brush, as Ty Conklin & Marc-Andre

Fleury have both suffered from cold streaks, and triumphed with hot streaks too. Look for Ottawa to

show good team spirit, and play the Penguins very tough, but Pittsburgh will prevail with a 4-1 series

season has to be the Capitals. On Thanksgiving Day, the team was in dead last in the league with a

6-14-1 record. After firing head coach Glen Hanlon and replacing him with long-time minor league

coach Bruce Boudreau, the team still struggled for a while, languishing in last place as of December 30.

Then, a resurection began, with the team overcoming their own deficit to not only make it to the

playoffs, but bounce the Carolina Hurricanes out of the division lead & playoffs on the last game of

their season. Alex Ovechkin truly is the team’s MVP, leading the league in goals & points. His

teammates provided yeoman efforts, including defenceman Mike Green who lead the league in goals

scored among defencemen, and rookie forward Nicklas Backstrom, who lead all rookies with 55

assists, and was second in rookie scoring with 72 points. Veterans obtained from the trade deadline

all provided significant contributions, including former-Hab Cristobal Huet, Sergei Federov, and Matt

Cooke. While the offence has carried the team, with 66 goals scored in their last 20 games, the defence

has only allowed 37 goals in that same span. Philadelphia, while not dropping as far as Ottawa, has

also struggled during the stretch run. Look for Washington to dominate Philadelphia with a 4-0

power play in the eastern conference much of this can be credited to their tenacious activity on both.

The Flyers crash and bang on the power play and get into every goalies kitchen and with Mike

Richards and Jeff Carter their penalty kill can scare a lot of teams especially ones which use forwards

it appeared, three of their wins were in overtime or a shootout, and the other four were decided by 2

goals or less. Expect this series to be a war full blown war with many battles taking place in front of

the blue paint in front of both Brodeur and Lundqvist. In the end the Rangers will win expect a big

Rangers and I have ever since the 90’s when they tried to buy a cup year after year. Yes, they failed

every season, but I find what the Rangers did cheapens the game and therefore I have a bias against

them because of it. Now on to the prediction. The Rangers have a very good defensive team, and on

paper at least, a lethal offensive unit that has been sleeping through the entire season. The Devils

have Martin Brodeur, Zach Parise, Patrick Elias and a team full of third liners. The regular season

dominance was hardly as one sided as it looks on paper but it still has value and this series will show

it in color. In the end, the Rangers have too many options for the Devils and Brodeur, but it will be a

despite finishing the season with 5 regulars injured, and having lost several other regulars at different

times of the season. Nashville, whose management forced the purging of several veterans last

summer, rebounded nicely to make it back to the playoffs at the #8 spot. Their coaching should be

applauded for the fine job they did to get this far, but the Red Wings should easily manage their

games against the Flames this season, thanks to the hard work of two men Dion Phaneuf and Robyn

Regher who will have to be monumental and steal one of the first two games in San Jose if they don’t

my prediction will fail miserably. Goaltending will be interesting as Nabokov and Kiprusoff played 77

of the west for reasons that can’t be justified. The reasons I refer to is the fact Joe Thornton has never

led his team past the second round. Patrick Marleau has looked disinterested after a huge contract

signing and currently has a team worst +/- of -19. To me this team is ripe for the picking, but not yet,

and not by the dysfunctional Keenan led Flames. Truth be told, depth will win this series, and the

Flames are not a deep team. Jerome Iginla is an absolute force, but as much as I like his game, he is

clubs. Toughness and solid veterans litter both sides, and neither side will give the other an inch on

in my books. Minnesota has a solid defensive team from top to bottom and will….. oh wait a second….

They used to have a great defensive team before Kurtis Foster was grotesquely injured with a broken

leg, and now recently Nick Schultz has fallen. Replacing the 20-25 mins per game that these guys

played is impossible at this point in the season and it will show on the ice. For the Avalanche, taking Schultz and Foster out of the line up greatly hinders the Wild’s ability to contain the trio of

Forsberg Sakic and Stastny for Colorado who have been on fire offensively lately. Add in the

Theodore factor (who looks like the Theo Montreal fans remember) and it spells a early exit for the

Stars offence just wont be enough to beat the Ducks stingy defense. On the goaltending front J.S.

Giguere has led his Ducks to the Cup finals twice while Marty Turco has never won a playoff series

will happen too. The Ducks have swindled everyone in the hockey world this season by having

Selanne and Neidermayer “consider retirement” for as many games as it took to remain under the

salary cap and now they will finally pay for it. Anaheim is a very good team built for the playoffs but

they have also been luckier then most when it comes to officiating. The Ducks interfere and hold more

then any team in the NHL and always get away with it for some reason, but the Stars will end that

streak now with a strong PP unit. The main reason that Dallas is forever talked about as a non factor

in the playoffs is because of Marty Turco’s inability to win a series. Turco hasn’t been even close to

bad in the playoffs as much as he has been unlucky. Last season the Stars won 3 games in the first

round and all three from Turco’s shutouts. If the Stars had been able to score more goals (more then

1) they would have surpassed the first round and then some. This season they addressed that issue

with the addition of proven playoff performer and Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards. Mike Ribiero

has been even better this season and adds more then a point per game. This series will be dirty, tough,